I recently spoke to Jon O’Neill, lead vocal of folk band ‘Forest Falls’ about the band’s new single (also the title of their EP) ‘Hound’. Jon loves Tasmania, having visited here at the end of last year, taking in MONA, driving around Launceston and Hobart with his fiancé and exploring the Huon valley at a ‘tee-pee’ camp. John is sending out the message to any potential promoters and or venues that he’s keen to bring the band down to Tassie for some gigs.
‘Forest Falls’ got its name from when the band did some pre-production work in the Victorian suburb of the same name and the name seemed to fit the image they were wanting to convey as a folk band.
What is very important to Jon is the connection with the audience and part of that connection means establishing a link with the audience by allowing them to form their own interpretation of what they believe a song is about.
With the band’s new film clip filmed in Melbourne by film director ‘An Architect Photographed My Undies’.’ Hound’ a clip about relationships allows the viewer to bring their own perspective to what is going on in the clip. Jon says because a relationship is not made up of just one perspective and that life is about perceptions, each person will see what is happening in a relationship differently which fits in with Jon’s quote of ‘a hound is unpredictable, it can be your friend or bare its teeth’, so it is that ‘Hound’ tells the unpredictable story of a relationship that the viewer must unravel to fit their own perspective and meaning.
“The lyrics to Hounds were written in a huff,” explains lead vocalist Jon O’Neill. “A hound can be unpredictable; it can be your best friend or bear its teeth, and I suppose I was bearing mine at the time.”
Jon who used to be a nurse says that job too, was about connecting and helping people, in that case assisting about four people a day, now with music he hopes to reach, connect and help many more people through his music.
Forest Fall’s single ‘Hounds’ and video clip and the EP of the same name are out now. The band has also been involved in a month long residency at Melbourne Workers Club with gigs at Geelong’s Workers Club and some Sydney dates.
Check out the clip for Hounds here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIhBGt5LmaQ&feature=youtu.be
Paula Xiberras
